How Military-Technological Trade-Offs Influence Efficient Project Size in Armaments Acquisition

This dissertation investigates the technological determinants of two inverse approaches to balancing resources and requirements in armaments acquisition: cooperative cost absorption, an ‘external’ balancing strategy, and unilateral complexity moderation, an ‘internal’ balancing strategy. To this end, it focuses on the physical and resulting engineering trade-offs that permeate key classes of weapon systems in the land and air domains. Theoretically embedded and empirically underpinned, it analyses how such technology-inherent design constraints influence the respective systems’ potentials for standardised (multi-mission) and specialised layouts – and, by implication, their suitability for large-scale external balancing and small-scale internal balancing. In doing so, this dissertation helps to fill a crucial research gap, with practical implications for the defence-industrial strategies of countries large and small.